Soy is one ingredient that I want to eat a lot more of. The only problem is, I don’t really know how to incorporate it into my diet. Plus, up until recently, soy, to me, basically equalled tofu, and I didn’t care much for tofu.

I’m learning, however, that soy really does not equal tofu. There is a lot more to it. You can consume soy in the form of beans, be them dried, sprouted, fresh (also known as edamame), or roasted. There’s also soy “milk”, soy flour, soy paste, tempeh, yuba and miso, to name a few. Now that’s a lot of options to choose from!

I’ve already switched from cow to soy milk quite a while ago. I never cared for cow’s milk anyway, so it was rather easy to change. It was just a matter of getting used to the taste. I started with vanilla; then I switched to unflavoured and more recently to unsweetened. Good. Now what else? How do I cook with soy? I need to find inspiration, and lots of it.

My mom recently gave me this SUPERB recipe book entirely dedicated to cooking with soy. The pictures in it are really beautiful and truly inspire me to try some (a lot) of the recipes. This is the first one I tried. Since I was extremely happy with how it turned out, you can expect to see a quite a few more in the upcoming weeks / months.

Ingredients (Adapted from Healthy Soy, Cooking with soybeans)
(serves 4)

Tofu balls

  • 300g extra firm tofu
  • ¼ cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
  • 1 celery rib, finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 4 green onions, finely chopped
  • 1 cup soy and flax breadcrumbs (I used whole wheat)
  • 2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
  • 1/3 cup tahini
  • 1/3 cup raisins
  • ½ tsp cumin
  • ¼ tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp chilli paste (sambal oelek)
  •  ¼ cup cornmeal
  • 2 tbsp soy oil

Mint Yogurt Sauce

  • 180g silk tofu, drained
  • ¾ cup 0% plain greek yogurt
  • 3 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Almond rice

  • 1 cup brown basmati rice
  • 2½ cups water
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 50g toasted almonds, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS

Rice

  • In a fine sieve, rinse rice thoroughly under cold running water.
  • Transfer to saucepan with salt and water. Bring to a boil then lower heat, cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes, until water is absorbed.
  • Add almonds and stir to combine.

Tofu Balls

  • In a food processor, grind the tofu until its texture resembles that of breadcrumbs. Add parsley, garlic, green onions and celery until mixture and give this mixture a quick pulse until well combined.
  • Transfer to mixing bowl, add breadcrumbs, tahini, raisins, soy sauce, cumin, coriander and chilli paste. Mix thoroughly and shape into little bite size balls. Roll each ball in cornmeal.
  • Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat and cook the balls until nice and golden on all sides, about 8-10 minutes in total.

Yogurt Mint Sauce

  • Puree tofu in a food processor, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined.